OK, I have to admit here that there is no way I would have picked up and actually read a book with a title as long and serious-sounding as Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally if it weren't what the new Bible Study class I'm going to was reading. I started the class when they were 1/2-way thru the book, so I read the last half of the book first, then found it interesting enough to go back and read the first half on my own.
This is NOT light reading. This is the kind of book where you read a chapter, think about it for a few days, then read the next. Sometimes you read 2-3 pages, think about it for a few days, then finish the chapter. Unless you have a lot of free time to think, but since I don't it took me a few days to do the thinking.
So, if you are an ultra-conservative, fundamentalist Christian who has no interest in seeing other views or considering anything to not be black or white, stop reading here. This is NOT the book for you. For the rest of you, Borg's basic premise is that the Bible is not a literal, historical work and is not to be taken as such. It is a *sacred* work of literature and IS to be taken as such. Did God create the world in a literal seven days or are we to take into account the face that "God's time isn't our time" in the Genesis account. Doesn't matter. Borg's not even sure there really were an Adam and Eve. What he is sure of is that these stories do carry a message about the sacred traditions of our faith. Instead of trying to figure out what was a historical fact and what was an allegorical story, Borg focuses on looking at what the stories MEAN. Both for the Hebrews who wrote them and for us in post-modern America.
What I personally find interesting is that this is apparently an extremely "liberal" view of the Bible since, well, this is kind of how I've always seen the Bible. Lately I've been wondering where I got this viewpoint I have, so it was nice to see someone else sees it the same way. The Bible's primary importance is as a a sacred work of guidance for our lives, not as a history book.
This was a hard to read but worth it book. I can't go thru everything the guy says, but will say it's worth the effort if you have even a passing interest the Bible.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Fresh Disasters
Fresh Disasters is the latest in the Stone Barrington series by Stuart Woods. This time Stone is filing a lawsuit against NYC mob leader Carmine Datilla on behalf of Herbie Fisher, a lovable ne'er do well. He also has to protect a woman from her crazed ex-boyfriend and gets the privilege of handling a divorce for the wife (soon to be ex) of the lawyer representing Carmine Datilla.
As usual, it's much more complicated than it sounds, involves huge amount of money changing hands and several sexual encounters a day. Once again, it's an exciting, fun book and an easy read.
I think this is the first of the series that I've read that didn't include an appearance by his ex-girlfriend Arrington Calder. I'm still wondering where she was. I finally realized that what I like about Stuart Woods' Stone Barrington series is it's predictability. Not in a boring "I don't need to read this because I know the ending" kind of way, but in a macaroni and cheese with chocolate milk kind of way.
First, you always know that Stone is going to survive. And that every evening in NYC, no matter how action-packed the day, will end with dinner at Elaine's with Dino. Every day that Stone is not in NYC he will call Dino once, if not twice about some police-related matter. Typically he will need Dino to take off work and come help him solve the case.
Stone always has romantic involvement with at least 2 women in the course of the book, usually 3 or more, but always at least 2. Usually at least one will be a client and one will have some sort of involvement with his opposition. One of them will be from Delano, Georgia and Stone will act as if he never heard from the town. How many beautiful, sex-starved women can there be in a town that doesn't even exist according to Google maps?
Stone will always need to make a trip to either his house in Maine or his house in Connecticut to stash someone who needs to be hidden away. And if he only needs to use one of those houses, he will at least casually mention the other.
Large amounts of cash will change hands multiple times. Stone will always start the novel in a financial hole, being chided by his dutiful secretary Joan. Then he will end it a wealthy man. I guess he just blows the cash and doesn't work between books.
But, you don't know how he's going to get the money and it sometimes comes from a surprising place. And you don't know which girl Stone will still be with at the end of the book. Or which one will die or turn out to be in cahoots with the enemy. You don't know how he'll foil the mob bosses, the evil ex-boyfriends and the hired guns. But, you know he will.
As usual, it's much more complicated than it sounds, involves huge amount of money changing hands and several sexual encounters a day. Once again, it's an exciting, fun book and an easy read.
I think this is the first of the series that I've read that didn't include an appearance by his ex-girlfriend Arrington Calder. I'm still wondering where she was. I finally realized that what I like about Stuart Woods' Stone Barrington series is it's predictability. Not in a boring "I don't need to read this because I know the ending" kind of way, but in a macaroni and cheese with chocolate milk kind of way.
First, you always know that Stone is going to survive. And that every evening in NYC, no matter how action-packed the day, will end with dinner at Elaine's with Dino. Every day that Stone is not in NYC he will call Dino once, if not twice about some police-related matter. Typically he will need Dino to take off work and come help him solve the case.
Stone always has romantic involvement with at least 2 women in the course of the book, usually 3 or more, but always at least 2. Usually at least one will be a client and one will have some sort of involvement with his opposition. One of them will be from Delano, Georgia and Stone will act as if he never heard from the town. How many beautiful, sex-starved women can there be in a town that doesn't even exist according to Google maps?
Stone will always need to make a trip to either his house in Maine or his house in Connecticut to stash someone who needs to be hidden away. And if he only needs to use one of those houses, he will at least casually mention the other.
Large amounts of cash will change hands multiple times. Stone will always start the novel in a financial hole, being chided by his dutiful secretary Joan. Then he will end it a wealthy man. I guess he just blows the cash and doesn't work between books.
But, you don't know how he's going to get the money and it sometimes comes from a surprising place. And you don't know which girl Stone will still be with at the end of the book. Or which one will die or turn out to be in cahoots with the enemy. You don't know how he'll foil the mob bosses, the evil ex-boyfriends and the hired guns. But, you know he will.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
To Say Nothing of the Dog
I have no idea why this book was titled To Say Nothing of the Dog, except that there is a dog, named Cecil, about whom quite a bit IS said. All in all it was an interesting book about time travel. The jist of it is that the main character and the woman he falls in love with, a condition he blames on "time lag", have to go back in time to correct something they think she changed, but actually what she did (take a cat out with her) happened to correct something that another time traveler did. Get it? I thought so.
Generally, the plot is interesting, but the constant references to time-lag and "slippage" and other time traveler jargon got annoying. There's also this lady back in Victorian England who is really into psychics and gets really annoying.
I read this for my book club and even though I missed this month's meeting I plodded along and finished it. Overall it wasn't *hard* to read, but it got on my nerves quite often. I'll read almost anything and I enjoy 95 percent of what I read. This fell into the other 5 percent. I keep feeling like maybe there was a secret decoder ring somewhere that would make all the pieces come together, but they just didn't. At least not for me.
Generally, the plot is interesting, but the constant references to time-lag and "slippage" and other time traveler jargon got annoying. There's also this lady back in Victorian England who is really into psychics and gets really annoying.
I read this for my book club and even though I missed this month's meeting I plodded along and finished it. Overall it wasn't *hard* to read, but it got on my nerves quite often. I'll read almost anything and I enjoy 95 percent of what I read. This fell into the other 5 percent. I keep feeling like maybe there was a secret decoder ring somewhere that would make all the pieces come together, but they just didn't. At least not for me.
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